Products, such as pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements can be dangerous if incorrectly administered or taken by someone other than the intended recipient (by a child for example). Most medicines need to be administered under a particular regimen to be effective, however, some patients take two does of the medicine if they have missed a previous dose which could be extremely harmful. Lastly, there are issues with patient dose compliance which is often hard to establish by physicians and can lead to further unnecessary treatments or provide incorrect clinical trial data.
A number of devices and systems have been proposed which try and identify compliance issues with patient pharmaceutical administration.
GB2483221 discloses a method of monitoring patient compliance using a camera on a telecommunication device to record the individual pill opening of a blister pack. The automated system detects whether an individual pill seal within the blister pack has been broken using image recognition software. The system collates the data issued by individual telecommunication devices by updating a database and queries it against preset parameters set by the health care professional.
US20140266760 describes a tablet container cap which incorporates sensors, chips, transmitters, and receiver, to record, transmit, and receive data regarding the time intervals between when the container cap was last placed on or taken off of a container. The container cap is for use with pharmaceutical and other health care related vials, bottles and containers. The data transmission is used to monitor a patient's drug administration times and intervals, and allows the patient and/or the patient's caregiver to review the administration data.
US20140297312 discloses computer-based systems and computer-implemented methods for monitoring medication events for an individual.
All of the above systems and methods are aimed at monitoring dose administration. However none of the prior art systems and methods actively prevent administration to anyone other than the patient (or patient carer) or indeed permit stricter compliance with the desired dosage regime. An object of the present invention is to address one or more of the above problems associated with the prior art. It is also an object of the present invention to provide for a dispenser, system or method which prevents administration of a medicine to anyone other than the patient (or patient carer) and optionally only dispenses the medicine in the desired dose within the correct time interval. It is also an object to provide for a dispenser, system or method which actively monitors dose compliance and interacts with a medical records or clinical trial data systems.